Posts from the ‘Mustard Greens’ Category

March and have I been busy preparing my garden for planting. I had very good success all winter with my Turnips, Mustard and Collards. Even my first at growingGARLIC. I harvested very little spinach. I have a ways to go with growing spinach. With trial and error I think they like limed soil. Don’t take my word on that though. I just jotted that down for my records only. I have lots to learn with growing spinach. All my greens were all looking great from the very cold weather we had here in Florida. I put up lots into the freezer and also gave lots away. I have such a small area that I had to pulled perfectly good plants up to make room for the Spring Vegetable Planting. We still have cooler temperatures here than normal. Last night it was in the 40’s. Today it’s to warm up to the 70’s. I notice that many gardens in this area I live still have Collards and Mustard Greens in their garden. I would to if I had more room for planting.

Tomatoes

Now lets move on to growing Florida Tomatoes. I planted Celebrity Tomatoes again this year. I wanted to give them another shot this year. Last years experience for me was a disaster as you can see from my last years postings. Oh No Not My Tomatoes!! Last year I got off to a good start with my tomatoes. Then we had a very rainy season. What a bummer! I lost all my tomato Bushes. This year I am going to try to prepare to do even better. We live and learn from our mistakes. This year I planted tomatoes Friday March 19th . Last year I had started out much earlier with all my planting. Nervous this year because we had so many freezes. My tomato bushes seem to be doing well so far. As they grow I will do my best to post updated pictures and comments. All comments and pointers are welcome. I will do my best to answer replies as soon as I can. Happy Gardening to you. You will find me in the Garden.

Planted March 19th. They today March 30th are approximately 7 inches tall.

DiseasedBush Not sure what sickness. I had one bush pictured here with it’s leaves curled up with rusty looking rough spots. I haven’t had time to do any research yet. I trashed this bush after this photo was taken. The other bushes seem to at this dime be doing well.

Oh No!! Pictured below. Fruit on this bush are not looking good. I haven’t diagnosed the problem yet. So far. I think the hot humid temperature and not enough space between tomato bushes is taking its tow on my tomatos.

November 18th Today is the day I am harvesting the first mess of Collard from my garden. Boy, that sounds very southern talk to me. These Collard like the Turnips this time of year are growing very well here in Florida. I am happy with my small garden with 2 small rows of Collard Greens. My first harvest is going to friends. The only thing I am doing is cutting the tops off (leaves). I am leaving the roots of the collard plants and in about 2 to 3 weeks they will be ready for cutting again. This time of year they are normally growing pretty fast. But, of course to me they seem to grow faster with cooler temperatures. Our temperatures here in Florida have reached the high 70’s and low 80’s at time. Cool at night. All my greens haven’t been touched by the frost yet. I can’t wait till cooler temperatures.

Harvest: This first mess of Collards I am so happy to give to my brother. I can guarantee frost or no frost, when he gets through cooking these they will be tasty.

Note: I am so glad that when I planted these that I did my best to drop only one seed into the ground at a time. This sure made it easier when it came time to thin them out. By being carefully precise on dropping each little seed. I had very little work to do on thinning them. So much easier. Last year I had not knowing no better, had drop 5 or more seeds in one spot. By doing this, they don’t have the room to grow. This year I have each collard plant spaced at least 8 to 12 inches apart. They are really growing. Pat myself on the back ! I go Girl !

November 18th. Today I harvested all the mustard from the garden (cutting just leaf). Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I was thinking about waiting till we had our first frost here in Florida. Maybe 2 days before Thanksgiving Thursday. I changed my mind because these big leaves were falling over starting to get too big. I decided to harvest and give away to friends. The leaves of these mustard greens I was so proud of. They are huge. I didn’t want to wait till the bugs started to get to them. Temperature here in Florida still in the high to mid 70’s. These greens are too beautiful to let the bugs have them. I do see a few aphids on the leaves of some, but they haven’t did any damage yet. I manage to harvest a 1 and a 1/2-13 gal garbage bag full. I rinsed them off in my small wheel barrel til they were squeaky clean.

Weather Today the weather outside is beautiful. I couldn’t have picked a better day to harvest my vegetables. Mid 70’s. I am now hoping for the cold weather to start. Maybe by the time I pick my next mess of greens a frost will have come and gone. A light frost on the greens seems to sweeten them up at cooking time. They don’t have that bitter taste. But, I have taken my greens before and washed them put them in freezer bags and its does the same thing. They frost right up! Florida for ya.

Today while roaming through my garden admiring the Mustard Greens that I planted back on September 26th . I am proud. They are beautiful. The weather here in Florida isn’t as cool as it needs to be for these Mustard. They are so big. To me they are ready to be harvested but I am going to wait a couple more days. I just watered them yesterday, because they were looking on the wilted side by noon time, this is tipical once the temperature outside reaches the 70’s. And this time of year it always does. I always water early morning hours, before the sun comes out.

Of all the greens to plant, these are my favorite in their beauty. I can see now why they are called Broadleaf Mustard. They are such a small seed that when you sprinkle them into the ground they are hard to see. One seed provides many leaves that grow to many and wide leaves. The seed being so small when sowed makes it hard if you apply too many seed in one spot. This is what I normally do, such as too many in one spot. Then I have to thin them out, giving their leaves room to grow. I found out last year when I planted too many seed in one spot was very bad. I learnt a good lesson. I don’t like to thin out the greens. Lesson learned. This year I was very careful to try and drop one seed at a time. I sowed them very thin. Then I didn’t have do transplant plants so much. Great Job I did. Pat myself on the back. I only had to transplanted a very few plants. Much easier on me than last year. When I think of a Mustard Seed. I think of where Jesus said we should have the faith as a grain of mustard seed. That’s a lot.

Matthew 17:20Reads: And Jesus said unto them, “Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard see, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Broadleaf Mustard (Florida) Date of Picture 11/02/09

The ‘Florida Broadleaf’ Mustard plant is a large, semi-upright plant that can be grown by anybody. Not only can the plant reach up to 10” in height and 22” in spread the rich green leaves emit a fragrance that will entice everyone. This variety is very popular in the South.

Flavor Mustard is widely known for its sharp flavor. This characteristic flavor is an essential component of many dressings and sauces world-wide. Unlike other “hot” flavors, the flavor profile of mustard does not linger. Rather it presents itself quickly, dissipates, and leaves little or no after-taste.

The time is now to plant my Fall Garden. Here in Florida entering the end of September. I am excited about planting this year. I learned so much last year at planting my fall/winter garden last year that I wanted to give it another shot this year. This year I must confess I cheated at the tilling it up getting it ready for planting. Yes I cheated. I had my boys do the job. The tilling is the hardest part especially if you hoe it like I do. It is the hardest part of gardening to me. So many people will not tackle having a garden just because it is a lot of work in the beginning at getting it all prepared for planting. Spring and Fall gardening no matter what the season, hardest part is preparing your ground for planting.

PREPARING THE SOIL

I had my son and his little friend to help me prepare my garden for planting. They hoed and raked the weeds. The weeds had taken over where I had just let it all go. It was a true mess, full of weeds. My son wasn’t happy about him helping me that day. We discussed it as he grumbled with the labor of it. He complained and ask, ” why do we have to have a garden”? Then I had to refresh his memory back to last years garden. He remembered how much better the fresh Spinach was straight from the garden. He had commented about how much better it was. Then he grumbled less about helping me. But, he loves fresh spinach. He bragged so much about Moms spinach from the garden. “It’s so much better tasting he would say”. He is only 12 and like all kids his age are going to grumble when they find real work to do. After he found out the hoe was a real stick and not a game, a joystick, a video game. If you know what I mean. This hobby of mine was not his way of fun at all. Sorry, I just had to throw that in there. ok, I won’t go there.

I sure hope they learned something that day. After all, Gods word does say “Train up a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it”. I sure hope they one day will return and remember the day of all the hard work. What can I say,,,,those boys did a great job. Of course I had to pay them. I Thank God they didn’t charge by the weed though. The boys were done with the small garden area within 2 hours which was done at their normal after school play time. My son only likes the Spinach. Thank God for those boys for a job well done. They seen on that day, gardening wasn’t as easy as it looked. Especially when they were working the hoe.

Ready for Planting The boys did such a great job. I have never seen the garden this clean from weeds.

PLANTING TIME

September 26th

I planted 4 rows of NE Spinach,

2 rows Mustard Greens,

2 rows Turnip Greens,

2 rows Collard Greens.

Banana Spider Yikes, I will be glad when they are gone. Now in November cold weather hasn’t reached Florida. They are still hanging in there.

Grass Hopper I couldn’t resist the Fall Colors. This type of grasshopper can eat a lot, doing damage to a nice looking crop in no time. I heard the best way to kill these is to SMASH THEM !!! In the past I have seen hundreds of their babies that were so quick at getting away, that by the time I get a spray they have scattered all over the plants. They are a Gardener’s # 1 enemy. They can do damage quickly. So take a guess to what happened to him, right after his picture was taken. “SMASH em Good”!!!

This here is a Luffa Gourd Sponge

I took a picture of this thinking it was cucumbers left over, that was still trying to grow. But the Luffa Gourd flower looked in size much bigger than a cucumber. This plant came up all by its self this year. I had planted some Luffa Gourds about 4 years ago. I hadn’t planted any this year. But, here it is. I took a picture of it. This Luffa Gourd attached to one long vine on my fence. Flowered blooms are many, but I don’t think it has time to produce the fruit. It is too late in the season.